Mutton dressed as lamb

Rating: 3/10 (12 November 2013)

First off, how does this film justify a 7.2 rating (at the time of writing) ????? I'm giving it a 3 - but that's purely for the effort that went into some of the effects.
To be honest, I'm struggling to find much that even justifies writing a review..............I guess the only reason is to stop someone else wasting their life watching this.
Possibly it was better on the big screen. Maybe the effects managed to numb peoples expectations - on the small screen (I've just endured the DVD) it's hopeless.
Let's start by saying it takes elements from many other films and even TV series - clichéd characters, 'power ranger' type robots, destruction etc etc.
Now a lack of originality isn't a problem. But when you get a lack of originality coupled with a poor script, a film's doomed - no matter how many tens of millions you throw at special effects.
And despite the massive budget, I had no real sense of the robots or the alien invaders actually being huge.
Therein lies the problem - a lot of the action was in the water, where to be honest you didn't get a real impression of size.
And when the action actually made it onto land, it was in bland areas where you got no real impression of leviathans battling it out.
Then you've got the idea of the pilots 'drifting'. Cool idea, but poorly executed. If the pilots were controlling the robots with their brains, how come they needed to move around like they were in a gym lol.
If the robot reacted purely to the pilots movement, why would that have any effect on a pilots brain ?? The suits were transmitting the necessary movements - not the pilots brains, as evidenced by the Aussie one who damaged his arm being unable to pilot later in the film.
If the robot was being controlled in any way by the pilots brain, then it wouldn't have mattered if the pilot was totally unable to move.
So a lot of time the effects seemed to be wasted..............I'd go so far as to say the battles in Godzilla films were more impressive (and they were largely guys in suits).
Okay, so in my view the effects were wasted - how about the storyline ? Hmmmm - if you were expecting the script to make up for it, think again.
This makes 'Battleship' look like Shakespeare lol. Hell, it's a film that makes another big robot film look good (Robot Jox).
Clichéd characters and script, and scientists (I use the term loosely) who make Bill and Ted look like Einstein.
Usually I'm a big fan of Burn Gorman - he's a great actor with a good range. But in this, his 'scientist' was horribly over the top - maybe a parody of Lee Evans ? This performance being counterbalanced by a heavily tattooed Charlie Day, who also didn't convince as a scientist.
Not their fault - maybe they were meant to be light relief, but they were just annoying.
As for the rest of the cast - two dimensional at best. Again, not the actors fault - the script was seriously lacking.
If this had been a low budget film you could understand the lack of suspense, excitement and poor script.
But Guillermo Del Toro is usually an excellent director. The film had the budget and the pedigree to be amazing - instead of which, for me it fell flat.
Maybe it would have benefited from having recognisable landmarks being trashed.
Would probably have benefited from having more explanation of why the worlds leaders thought building walls was a good idea. In fact any kind of back story would have been good - instead of which we get clichéd sacrifices, a kind of love story thrown in and all against a dull backdrop.